


Good Things

by RavioliRed



Category: Naruto
Genre: Also Orochimaru doesn't exist here, Alternate Universe - High School, Background SakuIno, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Rated for swearing, Sakura has a 4.0 GPA and Is Not Here For This Shit, Team 7 Group Project AU, Team 7 has one (1) braincell, and when Sakura doesn't have it Naruto and Sasuke are playing Hot Potato, until one of them yeets it into a place from whence it will not return
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-20 23:22:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21064889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavioliRed/pseuds/RavioliRed
Summary: “And the last group will be Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke.”Naruto didn’t know if he should cheer or groan. Sakura was smart as hell. Sasuke was smart as hell and insufferable.OR: Iruka assigns a group project in his history class at Konoha High. Shenanigans - and some surprising conversations - ensue.





	1. Friday

**Author's Note:**

> Okay okay I KNOW that Sasuke is canonically head of the class or whatever but listen. You can't tell me that Sakura 'managed-a-hospital-at-age-15' Haruno would be anything but terrifyingly on top of her academics, and let's face it, Sasuke just doesn't have the brain cells.  
I hope you enjoy these shenanigans as much as I enjoyed writing them lol
> 
> SIDE NOTE it's been bugging me for a while so I'm adding a cw here for bullying / harsh language that might be uncomfortably familiar for those w issues retaining information. We love and appreciate Sakura in this house but we can still admit that she was not always the kindest in her early days!

“And the last group will be Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke.”

Naruto didn’t know if he should cheer or groan. Sakura was smart as hell. Sasuke was smart as hell and insufferable. 

“Please make sure to meet together for your projects over the weekend. The final version is due in class on Monday. Have a good weekend!” Iruka’s last announcement, followed by the end-of-the-day bell, nudged the highschoolers into action.

Naruto and his group-mates gathered around to figure out when to meet and to exchange contact information. Both Sasuke and Sakura looked grouchy, he noticed with a pout.

“Hey, hey, what’s with the glum faces? You get to work with _ME!_” 

Sasuke’s eyebrow literally twitched. “Yeah, dead-last, that’s the problem.”

Sakura sighed. “Let’s just try and get something done, okay you two?”

* * *

They ended up meeting later that day. Since Naruto was the only one that lived in the dorms attached to the school, it made the most sense to meet in his room after classes.

“Well?” Naruto demanded, having thrown open the door. “What do you think?”

“Damn, you live like this?” deadpanned Sasuke, eyeing the laundry strewn about and towers of empty ramen cups. He tried to hide the way his fingers twitched to clean. Naruto pouted, while Sakura just shook her head like she’d expected this and entered, already starting to talk about their project, with Sasuke following close behind. They looked around for a place to sit, and then decided to remain standing. 

“So for our paper topic, I was thinking—”

“Hold up, what are we doing again?” interrupted Naruto. Sasuke and Sakura slapped their foreheads in unison, and a blood vessel stood out at Sakura’s temple. She took a long, deep breath, and counted to ten under her breath.

“If you were _listening_,” she growled, “you would know. But no.” She paused, bringing her palms together to gather herself. “As a group, we have to write a research paper, and present a related object of our creation, regarding some aspect of life in this area before the existence of Leaf Village,” she said plainly. “And you two _will not_ mess up my perfect GPA because you are incapable of pulling your heads out of your asses.” She glared accusingly at the two boys.

“_Him_ I understand,” responded Sasuke, to an outraged noise from Naruto which he ignored, “but I don’t understand what you think _I’m_ going to mess up.”

Sakura laughed, but it came out more like a sigh. “Sasuke, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but when you two are in the same room you’re _just as bad._”

Now Sasuke was the one making indignant noises, while Naruto got in a good “HA!” in his face before going on about their non-existent rivalry. Sakura plunged onward to talk about different possible topics, trying to ignore the fact that one of the boys had the other in a headlock. 

Maybe, she thought for a brief, foolhardy moment, she could use this. “How about instead of seeing who can be the bigger idiot, you see who can come up with a better project idea?” 

Naruto looks her dead in the eye from the hold Sasuke has him in and says, “Ramen.”

Sasuke just snorts and replies, “Of _course_ you’d say ramen, dead-last.” He releases him in order to cross his arms in a proper I’m-having-a-petty-argument posture.

“Like you have a better idea!”

“I do, actually. We could look at the development of the police force and how it led to corruption in our current political landscape.”

“Are those even real words?”

And on and on. Sakura sighed, giving up, and turned to start typing on her laptop. Approximately forty-five minutes of determined concentration later, she stepped between the still-bickering pair and stated, “I just finished the paper, which is about the history of Leaf Village’s medical technology. It’s shared with you through gmail. Unlike you two, I have somewhere else to be on a Friday night.” At a mystified _what_ from one of them, she added, “A date, actually,” with a soft smile. As she continued, the smile became noticeably stiffer. “Despite appearances, I’m _sure_ you can come up with some sort of fitting object to go with it.”

Naruto and Sasuke looked at each other, bewildered, and then vaguely ill as Sakura threatened the health of their internal organs in vivid detail should they fail to create something up to her standards by the end of the weekend.

The door slammed shut behind her, and Naruto gulped as he looked back to Sasuke, who was a little paler than usual.

“Well—” they both started, then stopped. Sasuke coughed.

“Who’s she dating, anyway?” Naruto finally asked.

Sasuke thought back to the last few weeks. “Ino,” he said. “The two of them stopped bothering me about the same time.”

“Arrogant bastard,” Naruto snorted. “Though I guess they have been hanging out together a lot recently.”

“I didn’t notice.”

“HAH. I guess I am the observant one.”

Sasuke just rolled his eyes; it was time to refocus, he decided. “I’m visiting family tomorrow, so I need to finish this up tonight,” he said. Neither of them mentioned that Sasuke’s only living relation was in prison, though the glance Naruto threw him was careful, more observant than Sasuke was used to expecting from him.

“You’re lucky I have better things to be doing this weekend, or else I’d say you were being lazy, you lazy bastard,” Naruto said instead.

“You just called me lazy anyways, dead-last.”

“So?”

Sasuke sighed, rolling his eyes again. “Nevermind. Let’s just get this done.”

They figured it would be a good idea to pick a technique mentioned in the paper, so they settled in to read over what Sakura had written. Or, at least, Sasuke did. Naruto got about five words in before groaning and collapsing in a heap.

“I can’t _reeeeeeaaad,_” he said, sweeping a dramatic hand over his forehead. 

“I know,” said Sasuke, already settled in over his laptop.

“You can’t convince me this is English, seriously,” Naruto grumbled, ignoring him.

“Maybe you’re just an idiot,” Sasuke added anyway, no longer paying him any real attention.

Naruto muttered insults back at him, and started to pace. With Sasuke absorbed in the paper, he was left with too little to do. 

“Hey bastard,” he started. Sasuke grunted. “Hurry up and pick something so I can do the important part.”

“The important part is the planning, idiot. Anyone can slap some paper and glue together,” Sasuke responded automatically, still staring intently at his laptop screen.

“But Sasukeeeeeeeeeeee,” Naruto whined, bouncing on his toes. “I’m bored.”

“Then read yourself!”

Frustrated, Naruto stomped over and pointed at a random paragraph. “Let’s do that one,” he said.

“You’re smudging the screen,” Sasuke responded stiffly, and Naruto suddenly realized how close he was leaning to the other boy when he felt breath on his cheek, hair faintly tickling his neck. He straightened up suddenly and spun, trying to hide his red cheeks. He couldn’t let his rival see him flustered, surely that counted as a weakness!

“So?” he said instead. “What are we making?”

“Stitches,” Sasuke responded, sounding just a hair out of breath himself. Then he seemed to remember himself, and added, “Which I ought to give you. Haven’t you heard of personal space?”

“WHATEVER,” said Naruto.

Impossibly, after they agreed on a model (a paper-mache arm with stitches made of floss) and they got to work, the two fell into relative quiet, only breaking their concentration to point out a mistake or offer occasional unsolicited advice to the other. By the time the paper-mache mass started to take on a recognizable shape, darkness had fallen outside the apartment’s little windows. Naruto started to wonder when Sasuke would inevitably excuse himself to go, and felt an unexpected pull of regret. Sasuke was incredible at everything he did, sure, but that mostly involved being an _annoying bastard_: why would he be sad about him going?

“Given up, dead-last?” the boy in question was looking at him out of the corner of his eye while he added a careful layer of paper to their model, and Naruto couldn’t help thinking that his hair looked _soft_.

He shook his head. This was dumb. “Obviously not, asshole, I’m just _looking_. For _planning_ purposes,” he finally responded.

Sasuke snorted. “As if you’ve ever planned a thing in your life,” he said, though Naruto saw the flicker of a smile before the other boy turned back to their model. “Come on. Your part still looks like something threw up half-digested paper instead of an arm.”

“Does _NOT!_”

Sasuke chuckled as Naruto lept indignantly forward to claim that his part of the model was _clearly_ the superior part, before really looking at it and quickly deciding that, well, it _would_ be, just give him a few minutes. And Sasuke had to give it to him: while Naruto was clearly not the crafting type, he really did put his whole heart into the thing. It was more endearing than he’d like to admit.

The model was almost done, anyway, with just some finishing touches to make it up to Sakura’s standards. It was respectable work, Sasuke thought. Despite their differences, he and Naruto made a surprisingly effective team. He looked, briefly, to the door, knowing that he really ought to go back to his own room soon, with everything taken care of here. He lived in the dorms now, too, although he hadn’t told anyone beyond the necessary administrators, and it wouldn’t be difficult to leave. But the full moon watched from outside, as it had on the night when everything ended, and he knew sleep wouldn’t come to him easily. Somehow, the idea of a night spent awake and alone wasn’t all that appealing.

“You can stay over if you want to, you know.”

Sasuke whipped around to stare at Naruto, who was watching him with uncharacteristically serious eyes.

“I know how much it sucks to have no one coming to pick you up,” he continued, “and it’s late.”

Sasuke resisted the urge to correct what Naruto seemed to think he was feeling, in part because he wasn’t entirely wrong. “It’s not a long walk down the hall,” he said instead, and oh hell, he hadn’t meant to let _that_ slip out.

Naruto’s eyes bulged, and for a moment he was once more the over-energetic boy that Sasuke knew. “_WHAT_. Do you mean we could’ve met in _your_ room instead?” Quickly, he added, with a grin, “I bet it’s not as cool as mine.” But then those serious eyes were back, and when he looked at Sasuke, they burned. “Still, though. Alone is alone, and you wouldn’t be if you were here.”

Sasuke shrugged and let his glance slip away, not wanting to admit how well the other boy had him pinned. He wasn’t Naruto; he couldn’t wear his heart on his sleeve no matter the pain it caused. Admitting that staying, that _not being alone_, would feel like a balm on his still-adrenaline-laced soul would be like admitting that he was still an open wound. As much as he wanted to, he just couldn’t.

But, then. He couldn’t bring himself to refuse, either.

Finally, he let out a gust of a sigh. “Whatever,” he muttered, hoping that Naruto, in all of his thick-headedness, would get it. The other boy studied him for a long moment in which Sasuke couldn’t breathe, and then Naruto grinned and slung an arm around his shoulders. Sasuke tried and failed to suppress a small smile as his heart unclenched, just an inch.

After they finished the project, each having begrudgingly admitted the merit of the other’s work, nothing could drag them away from the pull of a good, long, bicker, and they fell asleep on the same couch in a sprawling heap of boy.


	2. Saturday and Sunday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When one thing leads to another.

Sasuke didn’t get the chance to see if last night would change between them, because it was late when he woke up the following morning. If he didn’t hurry, he would miss his visiting window.

“Shit,” he said, and then more quietly because Naruto was still snoring, “_fuck._” After carefully disentangling himself and edging away from the other boy (which he was _not_ going to think about right now), Sasuke hunted around for his phone, gathered the rest of his things, and slipped out to his room. He thought, briefly, of leaving a note so that Naruto would know where he was, and then immediately decided against it. Why would it matter if Naruto knew? He squashed the urge down.

Once back in his own apartment, he changed into new clothes, inhaled some yogurt to make up for last night’s missed meal, and dashed away to visit Itachi.

* * *

Naruto woke up to an empty apartment, and it was so normal that it took a minute to pinpoint why he noticed the pain of it this time. Once he realized, he tried not to think about it, determinedly rolling off the couch and making his way to the kitchen. It figured that Sasuke was gone, though, he realized as he selected a chicken-flavored ramen bowl, because it was _nearly two._ And he’d mentioned visiting family, too— Itachi, he recalled. No one really talked about it anymore, but the massacre of the Uchiha family had been the _only_ topic of discussion around school for at least a few months after it had happened. Naruto knew well enough what it was like to have the whole damn village gossip about your dead family in front of you, and to see someone else go through that particular gauntlet made his heart ache.

And in the meantime, he hated that the knowledge of Sasuke’s whereabouts didn’t make his apartment any less oppressively silent. He made sure to kick a couple of old noodle boxes as he shuffled across the room to sit and eat, just to hear them clatter to the floor.

He spent the rest of the day running through the exercises they’d learned in P.E., determined to be the best in _something_, and fell into an exhaustion-induced coma as soon as he hit his bed that night.

* * *

When he woke the following afternoon, a Sunday, he realized all at once that if Sasuke also lived in the school-provided apartments, then his floor was almost certainly not so vacant as he’d assumed it was. After a quick bowl of cereal and nearly-but-not-quite-spoiled milk, Naruto made his way out to the hall to scan for signs of life.

Surprisingly, it didn’t take him long. He’d put his ear to no more than four silent doors when he caught wind of a familiar theme song and proceeded to knock heavily on the offending door. Muttered curses, impressively, could be heard over him.

Sasuke opened the door and deftly caught Naruto’s fist where he was still trying to hammer on the door. They stared at each other for a moment before dropping their hands, though not before Naruto noticed how the other boy had dropped into a defensive stance.

“Figures it’s you,” muttered Sasuke, and turned around. Naruto thought he was being dismissed until he realized that the other boy had left the door open behind him. Which was so unexpected that Naruto found himself just standing there in the doorway, fidgeting. Sasuke peered back from where he’d re-entered. “Coming, or are you just going to stand there gaping like a fish?”

Naruto harrumphed and followed, trying (unsuccessfully) to hide his curious glances around the space. Sparse, expensive-looking furniture gave the room a modern feel, but none of it looked used. Even the bed looked disturbingly neat, and the empty walls felt judgemental. He knew the room was the same size as his own, but it felt bigger. Emptier.

“I was right!” Naruto announced. “My place is cooler.”

Sasuke quirked an eyebrow at him. “I fail to see how a garbage heap is ‘cooler’ than a functional space. Speaking of, take your shoes off, idiot.”

Naruto complied, but not without pointing out that at least his apartment didn’t look like it was about to suck out his soul. Sasuke made a noise that just might have been a laugh hurriedly and not too expertly converted to a scoff, and stated with a deadpan glare that Naruto was no longer welcome here.

“Wait, really?” Naruto turned to Sasuke with wide eyes. “Can I come back later? I’ll even remember to take my shoes off!” 

Sasuke gave him a strange look, and then shoved him onto the couch. “No, idiot, you don’t have to go. I need someone to beat up in Smash.”

Naruto looked up at him with his blue eyes and laughed: a good, deep laugh from his belly that Sasuke immediately enjoyed more than he wished he did. “Good,” Naruto said, “because otherwise I’d have to find other ways to annoy you.” Then he seemed to register the second half of the statement and frowned. “Bold of you to think that I won’t be handing your ass to you, though, you nerd.”

For once, Sasuke didn’t respond, only smirking at him ominously before going to toss him a controller for the already-running game, which had been producing the music he’d recognized in the hallway. Sasuke plunked himself down in front of the couch, where Naruto had wasted no time sprawling out. He flicked through a few menus, and Naruto clapped in glee, competition momentarily forgotten.

“God, it’s been _ages_ since I’ve played Smash! I just beat Story Mode and there wasn’t much else to do, y’know?”

Sasuke gave him a sideways glance, considering. “You’ve never played against anyone?”

Naruto narrowed his eyes. “And what if I haven’t?”

Sasuke half-smiled at the screen, where Greninja and Kirby took their places on the stage. “Just another way I’m ahead of you, dead-last.”

Naruto, to his embarrassment, screeched. “That’s it,” he ground out as the starting countdown reached one, “your ass is _mine._”

In the second before the countdown finished, Sasuke half-turned to deliver a look that was all sly grin and innocuously raised eyebrows. “Well _that’s_ a bit forward, don’t you think?”

_GO!_

Several things happened at once. Naruto yelled some combination of the words _what,_ and _you can’t just,_ and _WHY?_, while Sasuke himself, attention back on the screen as if nothing had happened, tapped away at the controller with a serene expression while Greninja pummeled Kirby mercilessly to bits, finally flinging the pink puffball off-stage completely.

_K.O.!_

Naruto gaped at the screen, and then pointed an accusing finger at Sasuke. “You,” he said, “are a bastard. And you will answer for your crimes.”

Sasuke turned to him with a crooked, toothy, and entirely-too-smug grin. “Git gud.”

This, Naruto decided, could not be stood for. The next match, he unsubtly attempted to kick the other boy whenever he looked like he was about to hit his character, which was most of the time. Sasuke managed to pretend he didn’t care for one whole match, which Naruto won through the combined forces of his feet and button-mashing. Unwilling to give up the lead, Sasuke began retaliating with backward elbows and jabs of his own, and soon enough their controllers lay forgotten on the floor.

“Not so tough now, are you?” Naruto waggled his eyebrows playfully as, standing on the couch, he held Sasuke at a distance with a hand on his head.

“Bold words from someone who’s afraid to leave the high ground,” growled Sasuke. In a moment, he ducked away from Naruto’s hand and dove forward, low, to tackle him down to the couch cushions as Naruto screeched in surprise. Sasuke allowed himself a moment of satisfaction, sat on top of the other boy and arms crossed, smile tugging at his lips. But Naruto wasn’t to be outdone: after dazedly blinking up at him, he kicked at one of Sasuke’s legs and, having unbalanced him, tipped him down to the floor. As Sasuke spluttered, Naruto stuck his tongue out at him.

“That’s what you _get_ for trying to take my high ground!”

Sasuke felt the challenge like a spark to his skin. “_Your_ high ground, huh?” He gave Naruto a look that made him feel simultaneously in danger and very much okay with the fact. “As I recall, this is _my_ apartment.”

He sprang, and this time Naruto was ready. They tussled fiercely for a few minutes, one occasionally flung to the floor only to dive right back into the fray. Neither could keep the other away for long though, and after a while both began to tire, earnest shoves turning half-hearted and pins becoming lazy.

At some point, one of them had simply shuffled sideways on the couch cushion, and the other had fallen into place beside in an unspoken truce. They had to face each other, laying on their sides, in order to fit in the narrow space.

“It’s late,” stated Sasuke. 

“Hmm.” Naruto looked anywhere but his eyes and thought of anything but the empty apartment waiting for him down the hall.

Sasuke considered him, all sweat and uncharacteristic shyness, and then said, “Stay.”

Naruto’s eyes widened, but he didn’t yell, or drag him into a hug, or really do much of anything that Sasuke had half-expected from him. Instead those blue, blue eyes looked to his, searching, testing, uncertain. Sasuke felt stripped bare at the unexpected vulnerability he found there.

Then a word fell from Naruto’s lips like a stone: “Really?” It was not a plaintive question, but a cautious one, and Sasuke knew that if he answered carelessly he would not see this quiet, careful Naruto again. 

Not trusting himself to speak, he met Naruto’s eyes again, held his gaze for a moment, and nodded. 

In a moment the bold, blustery boy was himself again, letting out a huge breath and laughing that they were doing something so girly as having a _sleepover_, but Sasuke realized that this laugh, this smile, felt real on the golden boy. He hadn’t realized that not all of them had. Blearily, he wondered how he had gone without, how he _hadn’t_ known: surely, after seeing Naruto shine like this, anything less would seem dull, restrained. 

Then Naruto’s chuckles gave way to a jaw-cracking yawn, and Sasuke slipped away momentarily to flick the lights off and grab a blanket from the foot of his bed. Shyly, he lay back down, covering them both. Naruto stretched and hummed appreciatively, eyes stuttering shut.

“I’ve never stayed over at a friend’s place, before,” Naruto admitted into the silence. 

“I almost didn’t let you in,” replied Sasuke. “Normally after I visit my brother, I just spend the next few days feeling like shit.” It surprised him how easy it was to admit, though when he glanced over at the other boy he still braced himself for a face full of pity. Instead, Naruto looked at him with fire-bright eyes. 

“Sasuke. Tell me whenever you’re having a visit day. Or whenever,” he gestured awkwardly in the air, seemingly still unable to keep still. “Whenever you’re feeling like ass and don’t want to be alone. I’ll be there.”

And Sasuke _burned._ Naruto was maybe the only person he knew whose shitty lot in life rivaled his own, who’d already faced the whispers of gossip and pointing fingers and _so much worse_, but who’d been there for _him?_ Sasuke had been too focused on doing more, doing _better_ because it was the only thing he knew how to do, to do anything but help the class clown embarrass himself. Yet here he was, offering _him_ solace.

The words got stuck in his throat, once, twice, and then a third time, because really, there were no words for this. Good things just didn’t _happen_ to kids like them, Sasuke found himself thinking. But, maybe, all that meant was that they had to be the good things that happened for each other. He found himself reaching for the other boy’s hand, but hesitated, unable to nerve himself to actually grab it.

“Why?” he whispered into the small space between them, unable to help voicing this one last anxiety.

_Why don’t you hate me? Why help me?_ He’s sure that, in Naruto’s place, he would never forgive anyone who’d treated him as badly as, well, _everyone_ had, Sasuke included, even if it left no one to hold on to. 

“‘Cus you’re hurting.” Naruto breathed, as he closed the gap and clasped their hands together, intertwining their fingers and looking up at Sasuke with something equally determined and breakable in his eyes. “And seeing you hurt, it kinda makes me hurt, too.”

And Sasuke can’t look at him anymore, doesn’t feel like he deserves to, so he closes his eyes and curls his free arm around him, holding him close, hoping it gets across what he could never say out loud. The other boy let out a tremulous breath, and Sasuke thinks _You’re not alone anymore, either._

Neither said anything, but they curled a little closer together, not moving even when sleep evaded them for what seemed like hours. 

Sasuke did fall asleep, eventually. Naruto couldn’t, too struck by the impossibleness of the boy next to him, the arm around him, the very room they lay in. It didn’t feel real, and part of him thought that if he went to sleep, none of this would be here when he woke up. It hadn’t been when he woke up yesterday. What was to stop Sasuke from leaving again?

It was only as the sun started to rise again that sleep claimed him at last.


	3. Monday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lazy morning, followed by the panic and pandemonium of a Monday deadline and bad luck.

When Naruto woke up, the space next to him was cold. For a moment he blearily rubbed his eyes and tried to ignore the sting of hurt because he should have _known_ it wasn’t real, and was just getting ready to try laughing it off when he heard someone softly swearing nearby, and realized that the couch he was laying on was not the one in his apartment.

Sitting up with a grumble, Naruto spotted Sasuke over the head of the couch, bustling around the kitchen with a black apron over his clothes.

“Hah?” It was far too early for him to be coherent.

Sasuke looked over, just a little pink-faced, and simply responded, “You wouldn’t wake up, so I started making omelets.”

Naruto grunted, rubbing his eyes. But as the smell of herbs and eggs wafted over him, he felt very suddenly awake. No one had ever cooked for him before. He dragged himself off of the couch, sloughing off the blanket, and padded into the kitchen. 

“I’ll help,” he said.

Sasuke didn’t even look at him as he slid a messily-folded egg onto a plate. Another heap of egg stood beside it on a second, matching plate.

“Too late,” he responded. “Should’ve woken up earlier. At least this way you won’t be in danger of scurvy anymore.” He eyed the blond boy with distaste. “A well-balanced diet is important for success. Which explains a lot, actually.”

Naruto waggled his eyebrows. “Yeah, ramen hits all of the important food groups — no, shut up, it’s true! — so it explains how _awesome_ I am at _everything_!” Sasuke just gave him a _look_, pointed to the eggs which were, now that Naruto looked, _significantly_ greener than their counterpart, and said:

“Just eat your damn vegetables, dead-last. And you better eat fast, ‘cus we have to be in homeroom in fifteen, and I _know_ our project is still in your room.”

Naruto blanched first at the greens, and then at the time. “Damn, that late already?! I can’t believe you let me sleep that long!”

Sasuke laughed as he brought the plates over to a small table. “Believe me, I tried. You sleep like the dead.”

Naruto booed him good-naturedly and defended himself with the lack of alarm clock. “You’ll see,” he said, “when I’m in my room, I wake up with _plenty_ of time.”

Sasuke raised an eyebrow, managing to look doubtful around an impressive mouthful of omelet. “I don’t think I have to be there to know that’s not true,” he said. Naruto leaned forward, a challenge in his eyes. And an invitation, too.

“I’ll show you.”

Because whatever was between them, he didn’t want it to end. It felt strange to show the edges of his own vulnerability, even cloaked behind his usual smiles and jokes. But, he thought, his loneliness was something that maybe only Sasuke could understand, and it felt good, to not be alone in bearing its weight. And when Sasuke looked at him now, he knew that he felt the same way. 

“I suppose,” he drawled, carefully studying his nails, “that I haven’t quite finished destroying you. I don’t think I’ll be satisfied until you’ve admitted defeat yourself.”

Naruto beamed. “You admit me to be your rival at last!”

Sasuke finally met his eyes with a small smile of his own. “Or something.”

Naruto cheered for a moment, and then, realizing the time, shoveled the remaining omelet in his mouth and bolted out the door, leaving a bemused Sasuke in his wake.

* * *

“It wasn’t like this before, I promise!”

For as much as they had shared these last couple of days, Sasuke still wanted to strangle Naruto sometimes, and judging by the increasingly-terrifying look on Sakura’s face, he wasn’t alone. 

With an internal sigh, he stepped in between the two before she could carry through on any of her threats. 

“While I’m still not sure how you managed to _accidentally rip the most important part of the project_ in the short distance between your room and here,” he said, glaring at Naruto for good measure, “we need to figure out how we’re fixing this before Iruka’s class starts at one.”

The nudge at practicality seemed to bring Sakura back to herself, although a vein still bulged at her temple. She visibly took a deep breath. “You’re right,” she said. She studied their faintly-mauled model more closely, and a determined gleam entered her eyes. “If you can get me a few things before lunch break…”

Which is how Naruto and Sasuke ended up as Sakura’s unwilling servants in every snatch of free time they had, scurrying to gather floss to replace the stitching, a sewing needle, and quick-drying paint in both an approximately-close-to-human-skin-tone color and blood-red, because Naruto was dramatic and they didn’t have the time to talk him down.

When lunchtime came around, the three of them (plus Ino, who’d tagged along with Sakura) crowded around a cafeteria table with their project at the center. 

“Damn, Sakura, you weren’t kidding,” said Ino with a raised eyebrow. “This is a mess.”

“Nothing I can’t fix,” she replied with a hint of stubborn pride. 

Ino leaned easily into her side with a smile. “Never said you couldn’t. I’m more talking about your group, though.” Sakura smiled up at her, while Naruto and Sasuke exchanged a glance that was equal parts satisfaction of a shared hunch and exasperation with the way they were so readily dismissed. “My group did the evolution of snack foods,” Ino continued, rolling her eyes. “Choji insisted and Shikamaru just voted for his idea because he doesn’t care. Annoying, but at least we got to bring food!” 

Naruto pointed at her. “See?” he told the others, “Ramen was a good idea, actually. I could’ve brought in my lunch for our object.”

No one dignified the statement with a response, although Sakura did glare at him. Then she threaded the floss through the needle with a glint in her eye and a concentration that wouldn’t have been out of place in an actual hospital, and everyone was all business once more.

“All right,” Sakura said. “Let’s get this done.”

* * *

Iruka stopped by their desks and peered down with an appraising look. Naruto could feel himself break into a cold sweat, and he was pretty sure Sakura’s hands were shaking, but she looked steadily back. Sasuke looked like he wasn’t breathing.

Then Iruka beamed. “This is magnificent work, you three! Top marks for sure, assuming your paper matches this quality.” 

The three students exhaled relief as one. With Sakura at the keyboard, that was beyond doubt. As Iruka moved on to the next group, Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke turned to each other with shaky smiles. Their group might not have been a conventional one, but they’d pulled it all off, somehow. And they’d even done it (mostly) working together, like an actual team. 

The bell rang for the end of the day, and Ino was already dragging Sakura off to a flower place she wanted to check out, and suddenly Naruto and Sasuke found themselves walking back to their apartments together. 

Naruto glanced sideways at the other boy, a ghost of the quiet thoughtfulness from the previous night hanging over his too-relaxed shoulders. “Hey. Have you looked at the homework from Kakeshi’s class yet?”

Baffled, Sasuke shook his head.

“It’s impossible,” he groaned exaggeratedly, throwing his arms up for emphasis. “Not even Sakura could make sense of it, probably.” That sly glance, again. “I bet you couldn’t, either.”

And _oh,_ Sasuke knew what he was doing, spoke this language.

“If I can’t figure it out, then you _would_ be hopeless at it, dead-last,” he replied easily. “But if you _must_ see it to believe it, I can show you.”

Naruto beamed at him, with that thousand-watt smile that outshone the sun, and said, “Let’s go to my place.”

This time, Sasuke didn’t hesitate to grab his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! My first multi-chapter fic. I hope you enjoyed :)
> 
> Side note I've been spelling omelet as "omelette" for AGES I didn't realize!!! I didn't know that was the french way!! I know "omelet" is the english version but like!!!!!!!! It looks WRONG, WHO decided this was a good idea


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